This invention relates to a mobile cooking apparatus, and more particularly to a cooking apparatus detachably supported upon a trailer vehicle.
Heretofore, the cooking apparatus utilized for outdoor cooking for large groups of people for events, such as barbecues, fish frys, or other types of cooking operations, is usually transported to the cooking site by conventional types of conveyances, such as trucks or vans, unloaded and set up in a stationary position for the cooking operation. These cooking apparatus include gas burners, with portable gas bottles for supplying the gas to the burners and some type of appropriate cooker member mounted on top of the burners, such as a deep-fat fryer, griddle, or barbecue grill. After the cooking operation has been completed, the cooking apparatus is dismantled to whatever extent is provided by the particular manufacture of the cooking apparatus, loaded upon the truck and transported to its original storage site.
Mobile vendor stands or vans are also known in which the van is hauled to a desirable location and the products, such as hamburgers or hot dogs, are cooked and sold from the van.
Other types of mobile cooking apparatus are disclosed in the following U.S. patents: U.S. Pat. No. 4,108,055; Simmons; Aug. 22, 1978; U.S. Pat. No. 4,364,310; Rurfkahr; Dec. 21, 1982.
Both of the above U.S. patents disolose trailer vehicles in which the chassis itself forms the firebox and in which rotary cooking units are supported above the firebox for rotating the food as it is cooked.
Previously, the Applicant's have designed and marketed a mobile cooking apparatus including a chassis or body defining a chamber in which are located an elongated broiler unit upon which is supported a cooking vat, such as a deep-fat fryer. The combined cooking unit of the burner and the fryer are supported on a tray, which in turn is mounted upon tracks for pulling the tray and the cooking unit horizontally and laterally of the chassis and out upon a drop door which forms the side wall of the chassis in its inoperative position. The difficulty with this mobile apparatus design is that the cooking unit can only be utilized when it is pulled laterally outward to rest upon the drop door. When the cooking unit remains inside the chassis, the drop door forms a barrier to prevent the operator or cook to have access to the cooking unit. Moreover, when the cooking unit is within the chassis, which has a closed roof, there is no room above the cooking unit while it remains in the chassis for manipulating and observing the food, nor is there sufficient room for the escape of the cooking gases and the products of combustion.